Vanishing Point

by Marcia Muller

  “Tiegs was the one who was stupid. Thought he could rip off both of us.”

  “You mean when he tried to hit you up for fifteen thousand.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “His wife told me.”

  “Yeah, well, like I would just stroll into my bank at three in the afternoon and ask for that much in cash. Talk about calling attention to a problem.”

  “That was yesterday afternoon?”

  “Right.”

  “I tell you, Kev, if I’d’ve been in your position, I’d’ve done exactly what you did.”

  “What I did?”

  “Tiegs is dead. Probably murdered. It was on the evening news.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “His wife said he was meeting you at ten-thirty last night at the pier in Cayucos.”

  “That fat, silly bitch? You believe her?”

  “I do, and as soon as they question her, so will the cops.”

  “They haven’t talked with her yet?”

  “Haven’t been able to; when she got the news, she collapsed.”

  Silence. His eyes moved quickly from side to side as he assessed his situation.

  I said, “Kev, I don’t blame you for killing Tiegs, but-”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!”

  I went on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “But what about his seeing-eye dog-Blake?”

  “… The dog? What about it?”

  “What happened to him? I can understand Tiegs, but a dog?”

  I’d pushed the right button; Daniel’s face reddened. “Shit, I wouldn’t hurt a dog! Or a person-intentionally. What kind of a man d’you think I am?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me what happened.”

  I watched him struggle with himself. His need to justify his actions won.

  “It was an accident. I told Tiegs he wasn’t getting any money, and if he kept bothering me I’d go to the authorities. He attacked me and I defended myself.”

  “Tiegs attacked you? A blind man?”

  “Damn right, a blind man. A guy with a white cane or a seeing-eye dog, you think he’s weak, but a lot of them’re stronger than people who can see. Have a better sense of what’s going on around them, too. That dog-it went crazy, started jumping and barking. Tiegs and I tussled, he went over the railing, fell, and hit his head on something. The sound it made, I knew he was bad off. Dog kept after me, so I kicked it good a couple of times, and it staggered away.”

  So much for not hurting a dog. “And then?”

  Beads of sweat appeared on Daniel’s upper lip and forehead. “I’m not saying anything else till I talk to my lawyer. If you repeat any of this to the cops, I’ll deny it. I’ll say you came into the house acting like a crazy woman, scared my girlfriend, and I had to bring you in here to calm you down. She’ll back me up.”

  “I’m sure she will. But in case you aren’t aware of it, I have a damned good reputation as an investigator. And plenty of your guests saw me come into the house, looking sane and sober. No matter who your attorney is, you’ll have a tough time proving it-or your accident story.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Take it any way you want to.”

  “Look, you bitch, you may have a good reputation up north, but down here you’re nothing. Nothing!”

  I stood, slipping my hand into the pocket of my shoulderbag and onto the.357.

  “No, Daniel, you’ll be nothing, once the criminal justice system is through with you.”

  He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles went white. The cords in his neck bulged, and he made an inarticulate sound as he tensed. I slid the Magnum out just before he started to get up.

  “Don’t even think about it, Kev.”

  His eyes, focusing on the gun, turned dull and glassy. Then he sagged back onto the chair.

  “Whitmore,” I said into the wire, “you’ve got your confession. Come get your man. And be thankful I didn’t follow your orders about coming in here unarmed.”

  Saturday

  AUGUST 27

  Hours later when I got back to the Oaks Lodge, I had two messages on my room’s voice mail. The first was from Hy: “Why don’t you ever turn your cellular on? I give up. Call me in the morning.”

  The second, from Patrick, said, “I think I’m closing in on Laurel Greenwood, but I need your help.”

  The number he’d left was again in the 707 area code. I punched it in, and after several rings a voice said, “Econo Lodge, Crescent City.”

  The northernmost coastal town in the state, on the Oregon border. Now, that was interesting. I asked for Patrick.

  “Neilan,” his sleepy voice said.

  “What the hell’re you doing in Crescent City?” I demanded. “You’re supposed to be coordinating this investigation in the office.”

  “Shar… What time is it?”

  “After three in the morning. What’re you doing there? And what were you doing in Santa Rosa?”

  “Uhhh.” A short silence as he fully woke up. “The other day, after Rae told me that Laurel Greenwood was Josie Smith’s heir and executor, I got this idea about how Greenwood might’ve pulled her disappearing act, and I talked to a friend of mine who’s a nurse. She dug up some information that led me to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where she had a contact, and that contact pointed me toward Sutter Coast Hospital up here. But I’m running into difficulties.”

  “You figured out that Greenwood assumed her cousin Josie Smith’s identity and used her nursing credentials to start a new life.”

  Long silence this time. When Patrick spoke, he sounded crestfallen. “You figured it out, too?”

  “Yes-but I had quite a bit more help than you did.”

  “Well, I could sure use your help now. Can you come up here?”

  “Of course. I’ve been awake forever, though, and I need a few hours’ sleep-”

  Oh, God, Hy! He’s down there in El Centro, waiting to hear from me. I can’t just take off for Crescent City.

  “Shar?” Patrick said.

  “I’ll need to rearrange my schedule.”

  Nice way to think of your new husband-as a scheduling conflict.

  “Okay, but how soon can you be here?”

  I considered the flying time, the possible delays if the fog moved inland. “Tomorrow afternoon, earliest. I’ll call you with my ETA, and you can meet me at the airport.”

  “Thanks, Shar. I think we’re really close to locating her. This idea I had-”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get there.”

  I was almost asleep when there was a knock on the door. Dammit, it had better not be Jim Whitmore or any of the other people from the SLO County Sheriff’s Department. I’d more than done my duty for local law enforcement.

  I crawled out of bed, felt my way across the room, looked through the peephole. The amber-shaded bulb outside showed shining eyes, a hawk nose, and an extravagant mustache. Quickly I opened the door and stepped into Hy’s arms. God, it felt good to hold him!

  “How did you get here?” I asked into his well-worn leather flight jacket, breathing in its rich, familiar odor.

  “Dan Kessel flew out to El Centro in one of the company’s jets. I borrowed it.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I raised my face to his, tasted his lips, his tongue, felt his hands cupping my face.

  “Missed me, did you?” he asked.

  “Missed you-most definitely. But the jet, that’s wonderful.”

  “Why?”

  “Because later this morning you and I are going to fly up to Crescent City.”

  After our wake-up call came at eight, Hy looked up Jack McNamara Field at Crescent City on AirNav.com while I showered, dressed, and packed. “Runways’re in good condition,” he said, “and they can handle the Citation. I’ll check on the weather while you pay the bill.”

  “I’ve got to make a call first.” Since he had his laptop hooked into the room phone-even though it was a relatively new
hotel, they offered only dial-up service-I took out my cellular, saw it had lost its charge.

  Damn, I was definitely going to have to spring for a new model; they held their charge longer, were smaller and lighter. This unit that a short time ago I had thought so sleek and high-tech now seemed clunky and primitive. And if I let that thought lead me to contemplate the built-in obsolescence and disposability of the products we Americans snap up so eagerly, I’d fall into a daylong funk. So I simply asked Hy, “Use your phone?” and when he nodded, took it from the bedside table and dialed Sally Timmerman’s number.

  “A question for you,” I said after we exchanged greetings. “Terry Wyatt told me about finding a gift tucked in bed with her on her first birthday after Laurel disappeared-a stuffed toy called the Littlest Lamb. She said she could smell Laurel’s perfume, the Passionelle that both of you used, and thought the lamb had been left during the night by her mother. But it was you who put it there, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Those little girls were hurting so much, and I wanted to do something to brighten Terry’s day, but Roy had made it plain he didn’t want me near them. I still had the key to the house that Laurel had given me years before, so I sneaked in at around five in the morning.”

  “You gave her that particular toy because Laurel had been reading her the Littlest Lamb series just before she disappeared?”

  “Right. The night after Laurel vanished, Terry begged me to read the next installment to her, and I did. I also read The Wind in the Willows to Jennifer.”

  “But you didn’t give Jennifer a Wind in the Willows toy when her birthday came around.”

  “No, I couldn’t. Roy figured out I was the one who had left the lamb. He called me and told me if I ever entered his house again without his permission he’d have me arrested-and to ensure I didn’t, he had the locks changed. I suppose he wanted to distance himself from me because I knew about his infidelity with Josie.”

  “He might also have thought you were raising false hopes in Terry’s and Jennifer’s minds.”

  Silence. Then: “You know, I never thought of that. All I wanted was for a little girl to wake up with a nice surprise on her birthday. But the perfume-of course Terry would think her mother had been there. I should’ve realized that! How could I have done that to her? And then for Jennifer not to receive a gift… She probably assumed her mother didn’t love her as much as Terry.”

  Sally sounded so sad and self-reproachful that I was sorry I’d raised the possibility.

  I said, “I think the lamb was a lovely gesture, and it probably comforted Terry.”

  “But what about Jennifer?”

  “She unloaded a lot of stuff on me about that time, but she didn’t mention the lamb or the lack of a birthday gift of her own. Maybe she didn’t believe it was from Laurel any more than Roy did, or maybe it didn’t make much of an impression on her.” I paused. “Here’s what you might do-call Terry and tell her the lamb was from you. It would mean a lot to her to know her Aunt Sally still cared and didn’t just drop out of her life like her mom did. And when you call, you can also talk with Jennifer; she went to stay with Terry yesterday.”

  Another silence. “You know, during all the years Roy wouldn’t let me near those children, I hurt for them. But then they went away to college, and after a time I put my memories of them aside. Now I’d like to renew our friendship.”

  “I think they’d welcome it. I’ll give you Terry’s number.”

  Hy and I arrived in Crescent City around one that afternoon. The low-lying beach town, which once thrived on lumber and fishing, was years ago plunged into depression with the decline of those industries, but is now becoming a destination for outdoor recreationists visiting the Six Rivers National Forest. It also has the dubious distinction of being the site of a 1964 tsunami that claimed the lives of eleven people-the only killer wave that has ever struck the continental United States. Last June, the Crescent City tsunami siren-which the citizens are used to hearing tested at ten a.m. on the first Tuesday of every month-was activated one evening when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a warning after a 7.2 offshore earthquake. Four thousand people rushed to higher ground, while their more foolish brethren headed to the seaside to await the show. Fortunately, the alarm was false, and Crescent City and the idiot thrill-seekers remained unscathed.

  An hour after our arrival, Patrick, Hy, and I sat in a booth in a coffee shop not far from the Crescent City Econo Lodge. Hy was consuming a huge cheeseburger with all the trimmings; piloting the Cessna Citation-a fast, easily maneuverable aircraft-had given him a natural rush that apparently needed to be fed. Patrick was excited, but in a different way: his bowl of chili sat barely touched. I was grimly plowing my way through a Cobb salad; after days of eating hit-or-miss and mostly fast food, something quasi-healthy had sounded good. Trouble was, I’d ordered it at the wrong restaurant: the lettuce was suspiciously brown around the edges, as was the avocado; the bacon was limp and greasy; the chicken was underdone; and for all I knew, there was something wrong with the blue cheese. A note on the menu had said, “Health Advisory: This dish contains bacon.” In my opinion, the warning should have read: “This dish may offend your taste buds.”

  I reached out for one of Hy’s French fries, and he grinned at me.

  “Okay,” Patrick said, “here’s where I’m at so far. When Rae told me that Greenwood was Smith’s heir and executor, I thought back to when I was executor of an elderly aunt’s estate. One of the things I had to do was notify Social Security of her death, so her monthly payments could be discontinued, but with a younger person who wasn’t receiving benefits, that wouldn’t be necessary. So that would leave Greenwood in possession of a legitimate social security card, a birth certificate, a driver’s license, any credit cards and bank accounts, maybe a passport, Smith’s nursing credentials-and a substantial inheritance.”

  I nodded. “Prescription for a new life.”

  “Right. But there’s one snag. As you told me before, Laurel got the driver’s license picture replaced with her own, but when it came time to renew it, wouldn’t the DMV have noticed something was wrong?”

  “Renewing it might’ve been tricky.” I thought back to the eighties, trying to remember the DMV requirements at that time. “In those days, I think the DMV made you come in to have a new picture taken every time your license was up for renewal, rather than extend it by mail, as they do now for good drivers. But they’ve always been understaffed and overworked; when Laurel had to renew Josie’s license the clerk probably wouldn’t have questioned its authenticity. The pictures never look like you, anyway, and there was no reason for anyone to cross-check DMV records.”

  “But what about the discrepancy in fingerprints? Or did fingerprinting drivers start after that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  I glanced at Hy; he seemed more interested in his burger than our conversation. “When was the first time you had to be fingerprinted for a driver’s license?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  I looked back at Patrick. “Well, let’s forget that issue for now. Even if they had both sets of fingerprints on file, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t cross-check unless Laurel was picked up on a moving violation. Maybe not even then, unless it was a DUI, manslaughter, something like that.”

  “Right.”

  “So,” I went on, “you thought about the fact that Greenwood and Smith had both been nurses, and talked to your friend.”

  “Yeah. She’s also a nurse, and a member of California Nurses Association. She told me the union doesn’t require any sort of photo identification, and dues are paid either by the individual or deducted from their payroll checks. I asked if there was any way I could find out if Smith’s dues were current. She said yes, provided I was smart enough and a good liar. I was smart enough to ask her what questions I should ask the union, and I guess I’m a good liar, because I got the person I talked with to tell me that Smith was a member until
nineteen ninety-three-over ten years after her death. They wouldn’t tell me how she made the payments or where she was working, though.”

  “Okay, how did that bring you to Santa Rosa and Crescent City?”

  “I picked my friend’s brains again, and she told me about the Board of Registered Nursing. State agency. License renewal is every two years. You have to renew whether you’re working in the profession or not-so long as you’re alive and ever plan to work again. You can track a person through the relicensing, if you have the right contact at CNA-and my friend does. Smith’s license was last renewed in nineteen ninety-one, and her address at that time was in Santa Rosa.”

  Patrick’s saga fascinated me, because it mirrored so many strange, twisting investigative journeys I’d taken over the years. “So you went to Santa Rosa-a town of over a hundred and fifty thousand people and God knows how many hospitals and clinics and private practices-in the hope of getting lucky?”

  “Nope.” He smiled. “You know that mantra you’ve been drumming into my head-‘Work your contacts, and your contacts’ contacts, and their contacts, too?’ That’s what I did. Happens my friend has another friend whose fiancée is a doctor on the staff of Santa Rosa Memorial. It seemed as good a starting point as any. I drove up there, exercised some of my Irish charm, and she agreed to check about Smith with Human Resources. Their records show that she was in Pediatrics and left in ninety-two. That was when I got lucky. The doctor is also in Pediatrics, so she asked around, and one of the older RNs remembered Smith. Said she’d left to take a job as an emergency-room nurse at Sutter Coast Hospital here in Crescent City. It was brand-new at the time.”

  “So what’s your problem?” I asked. “Why do you need my help? You can just call them up and ask about Smith. For that matter, why did you have to go through your friend’s friend’s fiancée, rather than just calling around to Santa Rosa area hospitals?”

  Patrick’s broad grin spelled out his delight in knowing something the boss didn’t. “Because large health-care facilities are very protective of their employees’ information. My friend said that any inquiry that didn’t come from someone with a legitimate need to know would be handed off to Human Resources, which then would tell me the information was confidential and turn me away.”